Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:19 pm on 16 November 2021.
I thank the Member for his questions, and I want to reassure him that he'll be young in this place, comparatively, for some time to come. On your starting point and your endpoint about fair work, essentially, and what our expectations around fair work are, you'll see things that aren't just part of the guarantee. You'll see the legislation we're going to be introducing on social partnership and procurement, and we'll be talking more about fair work within that piece of legislation, so there'll be an opportunity to scrutinise what that means, but a more general gathering together of what each of us expects from the trade union side and from the business side as well. In the business groups that I have talked with—. I had a meeting with a range of business groups this morning and I had a meeting with a range of trade union groups at lunchtime as well. So, there's direct and regular engagement, and we are finding that there isn't pushback from those business groups about wanting to have an agenda around fair work; they want understanding of what that means, and what it means for them and the businesses that they run. It shouldn't be a surprise that business groups are not trying to make a case to us that they should be able to pay people as little as possible and not worry about whether their workplaces are fair or not. We have more levers, of course, with those businesses that receive Welsh Government support and more levers with those people where they undertake procurement from the public purse as well. So, there are examples we can set about the way we conduct our own business, as well as where we have more direct influence. And the points about gender inequalities in the workforce are ones that I understand very well, not just having run equal pay cases for some time before coming to this place, but, actually, when you see the labour force information, it's very clear. And it's not much of a surprise that, actually, the pandemic has actually made things worse in terms of expectations and how people have divided responsibilities within families in a way that often—not in my family, but often—meant that women have had an even more disproportionate share of caring responsibilities as well. And that has an impact on the broader consequences around work and progression in particular.
So, there's a challenge that is societal versus the Government taking a lead, and you'll hear more not just from me, but you'll hear in particular from not just the Minister for Social Justice, who is in the room, and I have noted that, but from Ministers across the Government. It's why the work that I was talking about last week on how we do what you suggested, in terms of how we provide skills and opportunities in careers that have traditionally been seen as for one gender or another but to make it clear that they are for people, and people with skills, and to perhaps encourage people to consider those as careers in ways that haven't always been the case in the past.
So, the investment in skills is a key way in which we know that we can increase both the efficiency and productivity of businesses and individual workers, and that should lead to higher wages—and we've seen a fairly consistent course over some period of time. And you'd expect the guarantee to contribute to that. That is both about those people who are already in work and people who have skills at the outset, but, crucially, for people who are further away from the labour market as well. So, one of our big challenges is that, given that DWP interventions are mostly around people who are close to the labour market, at or near job ready, we are almost certainly going to need to focus more of our interventions on people who need more assistance to get to the labour market and to be job ready. But that will make a difference, because actually one of our key challenges and differences with the rest of the UK is we still have a higher than average group of people who aren't economically active. So, actually, those interventions will make a real difference for what the overall shape of the economy will be.
Now, small businesses—. I was interested in what you said about a 'think small first' approach, and my starting point would be that we want every good employer to engage with the guarantee and to take part in it. But I'd be interested in perhaps a more focused and practical conversation with you around what a 'think small first' approach might look like and whether that's actually about the Government preferring smaller employers or whether it's about us encouraging smaller employers to become directly engaged. Because if we were to say we were going to provide disproportionate benefits or incentives, I can see that being challenging, but if it's about how we get to work alongside small businesses to reconsider their opportunities to provide people with opportunities in their workplace, to take on board young people, to think about investing in their skills, then I think that is a genuinely fruitful conversation that I would be interested in having with the Member, because our overall ambition is to keep talent and value in Wales, and small businesses, of course, have to be part of that.
And just to finish on your point about green skills and investment choices, I do expect the guarantee to be part of this. I've already indicated that, with the investment choices we make within the Government, we'll be looking to promote businesses to think again about the skills of their workforce, about how those skills equip them to take advantage of the opportunities of greening our economy—the necessity of it, as well as the opportunity to see a space to operate within. So, it's partly about why we're looking at green trade union reps, because often the best ideas in a workplace about how to decarbonise come from people who undertake that work on a regular basis. And when I've visited businesses, all the best ideas don't just come from the people who sit in a management office; they recognise that people on the shop floor, in whatever business it is, often have the best and most practical ideas about how to save money and how to reduce the footprint of that business on the wider world and community. And it will also make an impact in the way that we support businesses with the way in which I expect to provide future business support. And I expect to have a package to be able to move forward with, and you will see within that clear incentives to invest in future skills, and in particular in how businesses decarbonise. And I certainly expect that future apprentices will be part of helping to deliver that new way of working, as well as of course investing in people who are already in the world of work as we speak.